Beware the “industry average” trap

I love it when my CEO returns from a trip and discovers something from the airline magazine to question me about. Let me give you an example:

In Delta Magazine, he reads an article that suggests the average number of users to Desktop Technician ratio is 150 to 1 in most companies. (I just made this number up to illustrate a point)

When he gets back to the office, he calls me in and asks me, “Mike, what is our User to Desktop Technician support ratio?”

I do a quick mental math calculation of total users divided by my number of desktop support resources and say, “It is around 100 to 1.”

My CEO looks puzzled and concerned, , , then he asks the magic question, “Why is our IT organization not as good as most?”

Upon finding out what he is talking about and where he is coming from, I have to explain why our number is not as good as what he read in Delta Magazine.

When you see an industry average of anything, you have to remember, , , it is an industry average. What this means is there are many companies who will have much better numbers and there are many companies who will have worse numbers.

Having a worse number than an industry average does not necessarily mean your IT organization is doing a poor job.

There are a lot of variables that affect this particular type of measurement such as:

Age of the equipment being supported

Distribution of the equipment in the company

Complexity of what you have installed on the desktops

Amount of change your company is going through

Special projects underway

Capabilities of the support staff

Responsibilities of the support staff

Capabilities of the users

, , , even how you define a “Desktop Technician” and what he does

Lots and lots of variables.

You can have a worse number than the industry average and actually be doing a better job than someone who has a much better number. You have to understand the situation before coming to any meaningful conclusion.